Giants Roam Berlin

October 8, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 27 Comments

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I can hear the comments now: “Not a hack.” Yeah that might be true, but it’s still enormous puppets running around Berlin – that in its own right is pretty cool. The show, put on by the street theater group Royal De Luxe, is part of the 20th anniversary for the fall of the Berlin Wall. Spectators watched as the Big Giant rose from the water in search of his niece, the Little Giantess. We won’t spoil the ending, but its a happy one. Reminds us of the similar giant marionette group La Machine, and their La Princesse.

Berlin Hack Day

September 23, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 10 Comments

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/6668819%5D

This past weekend, Berlin played host to Music Hack Day – an event where attendants built and tested hacks, contraptions, and software all dealing with sound, music, or the distribution thereof. Some of the hacks are simply mind blowing to see built in only a day or two. Like the location based CitySounds.fm or Tracks on a Map – mapping out where your music is from. Or the music based games and composition tools, iLoveAcid squencer and MaschineFighter – adding some crazy fun to MIDI.

Oh, we almost forgot, we can’t go an entire post without mentioning something Arduino; named Xylobot – a set of servos powered by Arduino, tapping out rhythm on a xylophone (video above). Another Hack Day is planned so keep an eye out.

[Thanks robb]

25C3: Hackers Completely Break SSL Using 200 PS3s

December 30, 2008 by Eliot 78 Comments

A team of security researchers and academics has broken a core piece of internet technology. They made their work public at the 25th Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin today. The team was able to create a rogue certificate authority and use it to issue valid SSL certificates for any site they want. The user would have no indication that their HTTPS connection was being monitored/modified.

Continue reading “25C3: Hackers Completely Break SSL Using 200 PS3s” →

25C3 International Capture The Flag

December 23, 2008 by Eliot 5 Comments

Capture the Flag (CTF) is a long running tradition at hacker conventions. It pits teams of security researchers against each other on the same network. Every team gets an identical virtual machine image. The VM has a set of custom written services that are known to be vulnerable. The teams work to secure their image while simultaneously exploiting services on the machines of other teams. A scoring server monitors the match as it progresses and awards points to teams for keeping their services up and also for stealing data from their competitors.

The Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin December 27-30, 2008 will host a CTF competition. Most CTF matches are done head to head in the same room. While 25C3 will have local teams, it will also be wide open for international teams to compete remotely. Remote teams will host their own images on a VPN with the other competitors. Now is a good time to register and familiarize yourself with the scoring system. It will certainly be interesting to see how this competition plays out now that teams that can’t make the trip can still compete.

25th Chaos Communication Congress Schedule

November 24, 2008 by Eliot 7 Comments

The team behind 25C3 has published the first draft of this year’s schedule. The annual Chaos Communication Congress is happening December 27th to 30th in Berlin, Germany. There are plenty of interesting talks already in place. We’re spotting things we want to attend already: The conference starts off with how to solar power your gear, which is followed by open source power line communication. A TOR-based VPN, an open source BIOS, rapid prototyping, holographic techniques, and running your own GSM network are on the bill too.

We’ll have at least three Hack a Day contributors in attendance. Last year featured two of our favorite conference talks: [Drew Endy]’s Biohacking and the MiFare crypto1 RFID crack. We hope to see you there.

Hacking At Random 2009

July 22, 2008 by Eliot 2 Comments

Hacking At Random 2009 has recently been announced. It’s brought to you by the same people who held the outdoor hacking event What The Hack, which we covered in 2005. Date, location, and many other details are still up in the air. They’re looking to host 3000 attendees and we’re guessing it will be similar in nature to last Fall’s incredible Chaos Communication Camp near Berlin. 2009 will also feature the beta run of outdoor hacker event ToorCamp near Seattle. Two great events we’re certainly looking forward to.

[photo: mark]

25th Chaos Communications Congress

July 2, 2008 by Eliot No comments

The 25th annual Chaos Communications Congress is happening December 27-30th in Berlin, Germany. They’ve just published their official call for papers. Last year’s 24C3 was incredible and we’ll take any chance we get to attend an event held by the fine folks in the CCC. We hope to see you there!

[via BoingBoing]